Reading list

I passed a happy hour in the local bookstore browsing through all the fiction from A to Z, and have been getting a few recommendations. Here's my new to-read list:
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (book club)
Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy
Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater
Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions by Read Montague
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger
Family Planning by Karan Mahajan
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy*
The Position by Meg Wolitzer
Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
Slam by Nick Hornby
Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

* I could have sworn I read this book years ago, and I can't count how many times I've left it untouched on bookshelves thinking I had already read it.

I haven't gotten to the library for a while, so I am currently rereading I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. I read this when it came out and must have liked it because it's still on my shelf, but it is pissing me off to no end. It's supposed to be about the plight of the working mother, but I just can't dredge up a lot of sympathy for this woman. She has a job she loves, a saintly husband and two adoring kids, AND a full-time nanny. Most of her problems seem to stem from being a bitch to everyone and being paranoid about other people thinking she's a good mother. This one is going in the garage sale/giveaway pile.

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Reading roundup

Catching up on about six months' worth of non-law reading. I don't remember everything I read, so this is based on my library records.

Loved it:

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Same guy who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this time writing a domestic comedy about a guy who's convinced he has cancer.

I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly, and other stories, by Mary Ladd Gavell. DGM recommended Gavell's "The Swing" a while back, and the other stories are similar, closely observed stories, mainly about families.

Adventures of Feluda by Satyajit Ray. Totally fun detective stories, and oh-so-Bengali. Perfect light reading.

Liked it:

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I thought this would be about the Buddha, but it's not, although Buddha is in the story. Pretty ambitious for a novelist to write a book that reads more like a religious text, but it works.

Prep and The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. Enjoyed both of them, but the protagonists are awfully similar. Both are self-conscious, socially awkward teens, and she spends lots of time in both books detailing how they duck into corners to avoid talking to people.

Run by Ann Patchett. Takes place in Boston, so it was fun being able to picture the exact street corner where events took place.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Fun book, well-written, and who doesn't like the Wizard of Oz?

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Impressive that he pulls off the first-person plural narration.

Prisoner of Trebekistan: a decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris. Really well-done book that combines Jeopardy tips with the story of his love life.

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace. Reminded me of Big Fish (the movie, I haven't read the book, and okay, I fell asleep during the movie but was awake for enough to get the gist) in its meandering storytelling and ambiguity about the truth. Maybe I'll go read Big Fish.

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. Extended meditation on race clothed as a memoir, including an account of his community organizer days. I read it out of obligation, but it works surprisingly well as a story. I'd recommend it even if he weren't president.

Just OK:

The genius factory: the curious history of the Nobel Prize sperm bank by David Plotz. His Seed series in Slate intrigued me enough to read the book, but I didn't think the book worked as well. He couldn't seem to keep an anti-sperm bank bias out of it. It reminded me of Peter Sagal's Book of Vice in that both of them felt the need to hold themselves above the subjects of their books, even as they both participated in the name of research (Plotz donated sperm).

A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L'Engle. Her second adult fiction book that I've read, and it kept me reading but wasn't all that memorable. I'll stick to her kids' books.

Liked the writing, didn't enjoy the book:

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Daughter kills her elderly mother, reflects on a life of mental illness in the family. The whole book takes place in a 24-hour period.

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill. Former model ages poorly, looks back on life.

To a lesser extent, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Amazing book, great writing, full of attitude, deserves all the praise it's received, but gets more and more depressing as it goes on.

Good books to read if you have an hour to kill while waiting for the car to be ready:

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry.
Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling.

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Slow news day

The New York Times has an entire article, replete with map, of UK towns with embarrassing names.

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23 months, almost

Dear K,

You're going to be two soon! You're not really a baby anymore. When you were a newborn, we had to guess what was wrong when you cried. When you were one, we could usually figure it out, but we could pretend we didn't understand when you asked for a sip of Daddy's beer. Now you can tell us what's wrong, and we have to argue about it.

You tell us all sorts of things. And you've started ordering us around, too. "Mommy sit on that!" "Daddy turn off nightlight!" (Or, my favorite, when you don't feel like walking: "Carry you!") You notice emotions, getting upset when you hear someone crying or when someone is scared in one of your books. On your turtle drawing pad, you like to point to the turtle and grin and announce, "This guy, happy." Then you point to the worm and frown and say, "This guy, sad." I'm not sure why you think the worm looks sad, but I'm glad you empathize.

You've been learning some manners too. Every once in a while, you say "please" unprompted. You say "You're welcome" when handed something, and "Thank you" as you're giving something away. It's the thought that counts.

You've acquired quite a vocabulary. You know your alphabet, your numbers up to 12, your shapes and colors (except for green and red, which you mix up). You also know lots of song lyrics, which I hear you singing while you play on your own. Having mastered "yes" and "no" a while back, you've moved on to "maybe," "pobly," and "I think so." You learned the word "mustache" a few weeks ago and have been trying your best to apply it, offending some female relatives in the process.

We can tell you're almost two because you are all about testing your boundaries lately. The surest way to get you to do something is to ask you to do the opposite. I know when you're about to misbehave because you pause and lock your eyes on me before deliberately hurling your cup to the ground. And then you wait, with more curiosity than defiance, to see what I'm going to do about it.

Your favorite toys at the moment are the electric train and the little multicolored train cars, the turtle drawing pad, the big dump truck, and the "band in a box" that you got for Christmas. Santa asked Grandma to get Mommy's permission first. Wasn't that nice? Grandma thought I wouldn't like all the noise, but I love when we have a family jam session, all shaking our maracas and banging our tambourine and dancing around.

It's hard for me to believe that a year ago you couldn't walk. Now I can barely keep up with you. You're always off running somewhere, and you love to be chased. You haven't mastered jumping yet, but you're working on it.

You've been getting acquainted with the various body parts. You like to pull on your toes in the bath. Today you looked at me and shook your head, saying, "Toes stay on. Not come off."

The other day I was sitting on the edge of your tub, getting the towel ready, when I felt your little fingers at the waist of my jeans. "Mommy, tummy," you said. "That's right, that's my tummy," I replied. You pointed between my legs and said, "Mommy, penis." "I don't have a penis," I said. You raised your eyebrows. "Mommy, penis," you repeated, probably thinking you must have heard me wrong. "Mommy is a girl. Girls have no penises." Your jaw dropped open and you backed away. A long discussion ensued about all the people we know, whether they are boys or girls, and whether they have penises. By the end you got it, but you still didn't like it. "Mommy," you cried, "No penis!" "It's okay," I reassured you. "Daddy has one and we can share." Oy. I need to get better at my explanations before you're old enough to ask followup questions.

Love,
Mommy

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Shout-out to the nonbelievers

We were debating going to D.C. After seeing the crowds, I'm really glad we didn't. I'm happy to watch from afar as Aretha Franklin belts out "Let freedom ring," and President Obama warns us that there's no room for slackers in this country.

After hearing Rick Warren's opening prayer, I thought about how the country may be ready for a non-white president, but I doubt we're ready for a non-Judeochristian president. So the line that stuck out for me in the inauguration speech was that we are a nation of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and," he waved a finger, "nonbelievers."

Quick story from junior high: I went to Sunday school with a friend and was asked to read a psalm out loud. "The way of the wicked shall perish," I recited. "And who are the wicked?" asked the teacher. "Nonbelievers!" squeaked the smallest member of the group. I pasted a smile on my face like a good Christian.

God bless the nonbelievers! (And thanks, President Obama.)

P.S. - The new White House homepage launched at 12:01 a.m.

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Fighting

"Good morning, buddy," said JW, pulling K up on to the bed. "Have you been having a good morning with Mommy?"
K didn't say anything. "No," I supplied.
"What have you been doing?"
"Fighting."
"Fighting!" repeated K. "Fighting! Fighting!"

The immediate cause of the fighting was his repeated attempts to rub his snot into my hair. This has been going on for a few snotty-nosed days now and I have gently redirected him to a tissue or soft cloth. But this morning, after the fourth or fifth time, I lost my temper, grabbed his hand in midair and said, "Stop. Wiping. Your Snot. On Me!" He took a while to recover from the shock of being yelled at.

He was already upset because he woke up hungry. On our grocery shopping trip yesterday, I bought two of his favorite things: blackberries and bunny crackers. They were supposed to be after-dinner treats, but he didn't get them since he refused to let the delicious Moroccan chickpea stew, which I made especially for him, anywhere near his mouth. I worried that sending him to bed without dinner was too harsh, but he can't have been that hungry. Right before bed he refused my offer of milk, insisting to the bitter end on "Beh-BEWWIES! BUNNY QUACKOOOOOS!"

After reading recent posts by Lag Liv on baby urges and by Cee on how fulfilled she feels as a mother, I've been wondering if I lack some mothering gene or if I'm just more selfish than them. The latter is quite possibly true, but their kids are also a little farther away from turning two.

I guess the bright side is that after this, negotiating contracts should be a breeze.

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Phew

Called The Firm and confirmed my start date, a few weeks from now.
Now when people ask when I'm starting work, I can stop adding, "...unless they call and tell me not to show up."

P.S. - Update on my previous anxiety post: I realized I was being like a commitment-phobe who gets scared when their fling starts becoming a relationship. Having a job I care about is a good thing. It's the whole reason I went to law school.

(Also, I took a trip to the Ann Taylor outlet and bought some suits. Thanks for the advice.)

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I'll know I've hit bottom when I eat an entire pint of ice cream

Which could be tomorrow. I have been eating everything in sight lately.

I am an anxiety eater. But I'm on vacation. What could I possibly be anxious about?

After thinking about it, I realized: Work looms.

I like my firm. I think the job will be good. I enjoyed the work I did last summer.

But it's been a while since I had a career, and I've never had a career that I much cared about. I've never had to think about my future at a job before -- I never had real ambitions, so I just did whatever I felt like and didn't worry about getting anywhere. It's been a long time since I had to impress anyone, or even meet anyone's expectations.

Add that to the kid-related anxiety -- I'll go from spending most of his waking hours with him to making an effort to see him every day -- and the result is ice cream lunch.

I can tell myself it's not a big deal, and intellectually I don't feel like any of this is a real problem, and it's pointless to worry, but meanwhile I'm about to stop fitting into my jeans.

At least suits are more forgiving. I found this great blog post about building a work wardrobe. I'm going to be shopping over the next few weeks to supplement my current two suits -- any advice is welcome.

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Happy New Year!

2009!

This year always seemed so far off. 2008 was far off enough, and then when I took a semester off from school and realized I wouldn't graduate until 2009, it seemed like I would be in law school forever. (Which, really, would have been fine with me.)

But, it is indeed 2009. Time for me to start my second career and make it stick, which includes passing the bar. K will be turning two in two months, and will probably start preschool this summer. JW is making noises about career changes of his own.

It's also our college reunion year! 10 years. At our five-year reunion, everyone I talked to seemed to be in a transitional phase, about to start something new or thinking about making a change. It'll be fun to see where we all are now.

JW asked me what my resolutions were. I told him that this will be a go-with-the-flow kind of year, not a resolution year. We'll just see what happens.

Highlights of the old year:
January: Reflecting on 2007 and looking forward to 2008.
March: K turns 1 and learns how to walk!
April: I turn 30 and finish up my 2.5L year.
June: K meets his baby cousin! And I start my third and last summer associate job.
August: JW and I celebrate our 6th anniversary in Montreal, leaving K with the grandparents -- the first and so far only time I've been away from him overnight.
September: I start my last semester of law school.
October: K is a non-sexy bat for Halloween.
November: President Obaba!
December: All done with law school. (And, we made our first annual New Year's Eve beef Wellington dinner. YUM.)

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